David Director Friedman.

My comment at the beginning of the invasion was that, in order for the Russians to lose, their military would have to be substantially worse than believed, the Ukrainian military substantially better. At this point both conditions have been met. While Russia might still be able to win the military conflict, it looks to me as though their strategy now depends on besieging Ukrainian cities in order to threaten to starve the population in the hope that that will force the Ukrainian government to make substantial concessions.

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Conservatives like to talk about the causes of Western Civilization’s downfall: feminism, loose morality, drug abuse, Christianity’s decline, reality TV. Blaming civilization’s downfall on lardy hagfish such as Andrea Dworkin is like a doctor diagnosing senility by an old person’s wrinkles. The fact that anyone listened to such a numskull is a symptom, not the cause, of a culture in decline. The cause of civilizational decline is dirt-simple: lack of contact with objective reality.

…

Every great civilization reaches a point of prosperity where it is possible to live your entire life as a pacifist without any serious consequences. Many civilizations have come to the state of devolution represented by modern Berkeley folkways, from wife-swapping to vegetarianism. These ideas don’t come from a hardscrabble existence in contact with nature’s elemental forces; they are the inevitable consequence of being an effete urban twit removed from meaningful contact with reality. The over-civilized will try to portray their decadence as something “highly evolved” and worthy of emulation because it can only exist in the hothouse of highly civilized urban centers, much like influenza epidemics. Somehow these twittering blockheads missed out on what the word “evolution” means. Evolution involves brutal and often violent natural selection, and these people have not been exposed to brutal evolutionary forces any more than a typical urban poodle.

Steve Sailer.

If resetting clocks twice per year is so intolerable, we ought to bite the bullet and go to Year Round Half-Hour DST, which would mitigate how terrible Year-Round DST was in January 1974 (when Congress tried it during the first Energy Crisis), and how much of a waste not having DST in July would be.

I hate compromise. I think we ought to go to Standard time all year round. If somebody has to endure the darkness when they would prefer light, well, that’s why God gave us Thomas Edison and LEDs. Suck it up.

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Someone who goes without food for three days – nine meals – will be driven to desperation. If enough people go without food for three days anarchy prevails as those without food fight those with food to survive. Those with families will become the most desperate. It is not their survival success in getting food grants. It is the survival of their families.

Many have forgotten that in this country, especially urban Americans. Food is something that comes from the grocery store. Goods are something you order from Amazon. Both just appear. Until they don’t.

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The war in Ukraine has revealed that Swedes prefer to take in Ukrainian refugees rather than the usual culture-enrichers they are forced to accommodate. This attitude is condemned by Swedish progressives, who see it as another example of right-wing hypocrisy.

ZMan’s weekly podcast. Highly recommended.

Way back when the tech oligarchs began to censure people, the primary reaction was that this was not allowed. Americans had been operating under the assumption that we had the right to speak freely about politics and we had the right to hear others speak freely about politics. That was the rule. What these tech companies were doing was un-American and immoral. In other words, they were breaking the rules.

It did not take long before people started losing respect for the rules, since they were no longer being applied fairly. Working around the arbitrary enforcement of ever-changing rules is now a primary enterprise. The new normal is that the people with power exercise it arbitrarily and capriciously. As a result, the people who prided themselves on obeying the rules now have no respect for the rules.

That has been the biggest change in the last half dozen years. It used to be that a room full of dissidents would be talking about how we can get the state to do a better job enforcing the rules. Now, the room is full of people who laugh at the rules and talk about ways to get around the latest schemes by the rule makers to benefit themselves and their allies at the expense of the decent people.

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Buying an electric vehicle is a lot like buying a subscription to a car. Almost no one can work on them except the manufacturer, features get locked behind in-app purchases or software updates, and those features can get disabled at the flip of a switch. If carmakers can dictate how you use your car, do you really even own it?

Now, I know this is a hot take and will certainly ruffle some feathers, but it’s an honest question. It’s not just Tesla, either, as every major auto manufacturer is working on or releasing their own EVs. As vehicles get more advanced, this problem will only continue. There’s a difference between having and owning an EV, and I’m not sure which is better.

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A study of the extinct Christmas Island rat suggests we cannot bring back the woolly mammoth and other lost species without important differences.

I suspect that eventually we’ll be able to do it, but just not anytime soon.

John Hinderaker at Power Line.

Has the level of public discourse ever been lower? The Biden administration’s energy policies have been a disaster, as an overwhelming majority of Americans recognize. So the Democrats are flailing wildly, trying to blame exploding energy costs on Vladimir Putin, while suggesting that their own failed policies demonstrate the need to stop pumping oil altogether and shift to wind and solar power, fueling electric vehicles.

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Remember how, after 9-11, George W. Bush made a big deal out of going to a mosque? Remember how politicians from both sides (ha-ha) of the aisle lectured us not to hate on Muslims because 3,000 Americans had just been murdered by gentlemen of Arabic descent shouting “Allahu Akbar!” Remember how each subsequent Islamist terror attack — Orlando Pulse, Fort Hood, London 7-11, Little Rock, San Bernardino, the Boston Marathon bombing — were accompanied by somber editorials reminding us that “Islam is a religion of peace,” and how local and federal law enforcement were ordered to be on the lookout for “Anti-Muslim Hate Crimes.”

All right, since you remember all that, isn’t it weird that no politician has told us not to hate Russians for the actions of Vladimir Putin? No editorials have been written telling us to love our Russian neighbors. No, quite the opposite is happening.

Steve is not convinced that we have a dog in this fight.

Many Russians are much tougher than we are. Putin is much stronger than Biden, and Harris isn’t even worth discussing. I suspect we are poking the bear a little too hard, without a compelling interest.

 

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Most people you meet in everyday life — at work, in the neighborhood — are decent and normal. Even nice. But hit Twitter or watch the news, and you’d think we were all nuts and nasty.

Why it matters: The rising power and prominence of the nation’s loudest, meanest voices obscures what most of us personally experience: Most people are sane and generous — and too busy to tweet.

Reality check: It turns out, you’re right. We dug into the data and found that, in fact, most Americans are friendly, donate time or money, and would help you shovel your snow. They are busy, normal and mostly silent.

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Europe is the free-rider continent. For decades its defence has been underpinned by America—leaving it in a supporting role even as war breaks out on its own borders. Economically it has piggybacked on innovation from elsewhere, keeping up with rivals, not forging ahead. Even the feel-good environmental ambitions crafted in Brussels are made possible in part by importing from afar the products once made in carbon-spewing factories Europe shut down long ago. How clever it seems to some. All this money saved and effort outsourced has made it possible to live a fine life while working 35-hour weeks and retiring in one’s prime.

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have created a material that “is stronger and tougher than some types of bone, and harder than typical aluminum alloys,” the university announced.

The researchers hope their compound could lead to better, more sustainable plastics in the future. Currently, the material shrinks while drying, making printing anything large out of it difficult.

So, as it turns out, it’s actually a plant-based plastic, so the headline is a lie. That’s ‘journalism’ for you.

Joel Kotkin considers the long-term effects of the Pandemic Panic.

Personally, I think that the greatest achievement of the Panic was to underscore the separation between people who work with their fingers from people who work with their hands, a gap that will have serious effects on down the road. On the other hand, it demonstrated that people who work with their hands are the ones who make the rest of the machine chug along, so maybe they will be more likely to get the respect that they deserve. (No, I’m not holding my breath.)

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Last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent for Christians in the West. Many of us will give up sweets or video games or online shopping. Some intrepid souls will even give up coffee. I tried that last year, but my priest reminded me that my wife didn’t choose “dealing with a crabby husband” as her penance, so I found another penance.

It’s a little different for our brothers in the East. Their season of fasting begins on Meatfare Sunday and ends on Pascha (Easter). They’ll give up meat… then dairy… then fish…then wine… then oil. They’ll go from eating three meals to two, and then from two to one — and their one meal is basically just a peanut butter sandwich and carrot sticks. The most devout won’t eat at all from Holy Thursday until Easter Sunday.

Matched by the pre-Christmas Nativity Fast and the summertime Peter and Paul Fast. Oh, and every Wednesday and Friday throughout the year.

Welcome to my world.

Sarah Hoyt.

There are many descriptions for politics, one of them being that it’s what people do, instead of smashing each other’s skulls open with a club.

For the record, I’m instinctively the club (wooden, heavy) kind. Partly because I hate and despise mean girls and their cliques. I think life would be much easier if people who have trouble with other people got in a fist fight.

I’m also aware that’s not the way to run a society, unless you have a codified way to go about fist fights, and their resolution, afterwards. Which societies used to, mind you. But that too is politics.

ZMan examines Plucky Little Ukraine.

Imagine one day you wake up to see that some people, but not all, just the beautiful people, are now wearing flowerpots on their heads. You first see it on the television while making coffee. Then you see people with the flowerpot things while on your commute into the office. They are not wearing actual flowerpots, but hats that look like a pot holding a shrubbery. Not only are they wearing these ridiculous hats, but they are also acting like it is perfectly normal.

This is the world most Americans woke up to last week when news broke that the Russian army had crossed into Ukraine. Suddenly, as if they had received orders from the hive queen, all of the beautiful people were Ukrainian nationalists. They were all saying “keev” as if they had developed some new mental disease. They were sporting Ukrainian flag lapel pins. At the Biden state of the union show they were dressed in the colors of the Ukrainian flag.

This is not just a partisan marketing campaign either. The mouth breathers of conservatism are right there with their masters on the Left waving the yellow and blue of their new homeland. The same people who were wearing the angry face about being called a Putin shill a few years ago are now calling anyone skeptical of this new fad a tool of the evil Vladimir Putin. The same people who tell us nations no longer matter now sound like white nationalists in their support of Ukraine.

Read it.

The February 24 Russian invasion of Ukraine is revealing to the rest of the world problems the Russian military has suffered from for over a century. It’s all about conscription and, since 1917, the Russian government not trusting their troops and Russians now going to extremes to avoid being conscripted. This widespread opposition to peacetime conscription was unique to Russia. Other European nations adopted conscription as early as the 1800s, but none had as much popular dislike of conscription and some very real reasons to avoid conscript service.

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Israeli sources say both Western coalition and Russian forces have recently bolstered their presence as proxy tensions come into renewed focus.

The Russians are now involved in two ‘conflicts’ at once. There is some doubt that they can handle it.

Read it.

A fun read, if you have any interest at all in Latin.

And of you don’t … well, the angels will weep for you.

Read it.

Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, U.S. intelligence had predicted a blistering assault by Moscow that would quickly mobilize the vast Russian air power that its military assembled in order to dominate Ukraine’s skies.

But the first six days have confounded those expectations and instead seen Moscow act far more delicately with its air power, so much so that U.S. officials can’t exactly explain what’s driving Russia’s apparent risk-averse behavior.

“They’re not necessarily willing to take high risks with their own aircraft and their own pilots,” a senior U.S. defense official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Vastly outmatched by Russia’s military, in terms of raw numbers and firepower, Ukraine’s own air force is still flying and its air defenses are still deemed to be viable – a fact that is baffling military experts.

UPDATE: Inside the Ring: Lack of Russian air power in Ukraine a mystery

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A core component of making great decisions is understanding the rationale behind previous decisions. If we don’t understand how we got “here,” we run the risk of making things much worse.

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The problem with current ‘vertical farms’ is that they focus on low-growing easily-managed high-value crops, like leafy green vegetables (lettuc, kale) and fruits (strawberries). When they can grow cereal grains (wheat, maize, rye, barley) and orchard crops (apples, citrus, nuts), then they’ll have something.

I’m not holding my breath.

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On the fifth day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, one of many unanswered questions is why Russia has launched a military campaign at huge cost with maximalist objectives, and then declined to use the vast majority of its fixed wing combat aircraft.

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One of the oddest commentaries about the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the boilerplate reaction that “borders can’t change in modern Europe” or “this does not happen in the 21st century.”

But why in the world should the 21st century be exempt from the pathologies of the past 20 centuries? Are we smarter than the Romans? More innovative than Florentines? Do we have more savvy leaders than Lincoln or Churchill? Are they more mellifluous than Demosthenes? Does anyone now remember that some 130,000 were slaughtered just 30 years ago in the former Yugoslavia, as NATO planes bombed Belgrade and nuclear America and Russia almost squared off?

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I recently discovered a simple step-by-step process that significantly increased my personal productivity and made me happier along the way.

I’m not sure that this works — but it might.

What he calls ‘low-filter mode’ is what I call ‘mindlessly mechanical mode’: Just pull your time horizon up to your chest and take things one minute at a time. I developed this when I was a kid, washing dishes or running a handpress–you just zone out and let your mind wander while your body goes on autopilot. It helps to make boring stuff less burdensome.

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Bibliotherapy is premised on the idea that books can be healing tools. It can occur in individual or group settings, though the main distinction is between clinical bibliotherapy, where texts, including fiction and nonfiction, are recommended by a clinical therapist, and nonclinical bibliotherapy, as practised by a facilitator such as a librarian. Though not a stand-alone clinical practice in Canada, clinical bibliotherapy is a method used by professionals who already have certification in counselling, therapy, and clinical therapy and want to help patients seeking an additional outlet. Nonclinical bibliotherapy can’t replace professional help for patients with mental illnesses; instead, it is often used in conjunction with other forms of clinical therapy.

I must confess that I have often thought that some people with problems would profit greatly by being whacked up side the head with a Funk & Wagnalls … but I’m sure that’s not what these guys have in mind.

Ah, well.

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Elon Musk now has Starlink satellites operating over Ukraine, reestablishing much-needed internet communications after damage from the Russian attack. It may not have occurred to very many people before these events, but in some ways, SpaceX is an actual military power in space. When you have close to 2,000 maneuverable satellites in low earth orbit, you’re in a position to do…very interesting things.

I’ll just bet.

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The reason I don’t buy more Ikea stuff is that going there is a full-day exercise and I just don’t have that kind of time.

Plus I sold my van so I have no way to get all of that crap home.

But I do have nine ‘Billy’ bookcases in my library.

Online book.

The Swiss have put the most thought (and preparation) into being the hedgehog of international relations.

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In recent weeks, even in states that have long insisted on the necessity of strict COVID mitigation strategies, the masking regime is crumbling. Following the lead of red states such as Texas and Florida, officials in heavily Democratic areas of California, New Jersey, New York, and elsewhere are finally acknowledging that it’s time to return to normal and rescind many mandates.

The transition won’t be easy, particularly regarding masks, which for many people now serve as talismanic objects signaling one’s public health virtue. It’s difficult for many people to recall that at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, even the experts were inconsistent and lackadaisical about recommending that people wear them. “There’s no reason to be walking around with masks,” Dr. Anthony Fauci told 60 Minutes in early March 2020.

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An interesting analysis. Of course, it’s twenty years old.

Babylon Bee.

Works for me.

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Those were the days.